Retail businesses that sell products usually maintain inventory of those products and employ methods for keeping track of such inventory. One approach to tracking inventory employs a stock keeping unit (“SKU”) which may include a coded number that is assigned to an inventory item. The SKU may be unique to a specific inventory item, such as a part number, and may be a machine readable code such as a bar code. However the SKU is not necessarily a part number and may refer to a “lot” of stocked inventory items or to an assembly item which consists of various parts where each part has a unique part number. That is, a SKU may be used in various ways in the field of inventory management.
Retailers also often employ gift cards which serve as a cash substitute and provide a monetary equivalent that is paid for in advance by the gift giver. The gift card normally may be used to purchase products up to the monetary value, or used as a portion of a purchase along with additional tendered monetary value. In operation, gift cards must be activated and verified, and in some cases, checked for remaining monetary values.